By Erika Angulo and Gabe Gutiérrez -
NBC News
NECOCLÍ, Colombia - Every day they queue before dawn, passports in hand.
Thousands of migrants and their children stand for hours in this coastal city in western Colombia, waiting for a seat on a boat that will take them one step closer to the United States, in an incredibly dangerous stage of the journey.
Migrants pay the equivalent of $ 40 to travel by boat from Necoclí to Acani, near the Colombian border with Panama.
Then comes the most dangerous part of the journey to North America: the Darien Gap, a 62-mile (100-kilometer) stretch of jungle with no roads and no law, run by smugglers and thieves.
[Salvadorans in these states can already obtain their identity documents the same day]
Panamanian authorities have recovered 50 bodies this year, but they believe the death toll is much higher.
About 90% of the 82,000 immigrants estimated to have arrived in this previously sleepy city since January this year have been born in Haiti, according to Colombia's civil protection agency.
They live crammed into hotel rooms or in tents along the beach, with no nearby bathrooms.
5-year-old Utnica watches her mother wash her clothes in a bucket of soapy seawater.
They sit by their tent in the hot sun.
They have family in Orlando, Florida.
"I want to start a new life and find a job," says Desir, her mother.
Last month, the United States deported thousands of Haitian migrants who arrived in Del Rio, Texas, applying Title 42, a border restriction approved by the Government of former President Donald Trump to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and that remains in effect under the Joe Biden's mandate.
A migrant sleeps near the beach in Necoclí, Colombia, at dawn on Thursday, July 29, 2021. Ivan Valencia / AP
Still, smugglers are fueling the perception among migrants that they could stay in the United States if they make the trip.
Every day more than 1,000 immigrants arrive in Necoclí, but Panama only accepts 500 a day, which creates a huge bottleneck.
In the United States, Homeland Security authorities anticipate that there could be a wave of migrants attempting to cross the US border in October.
[Chilean police dismantle a network of trafficking of migrant children from Haiti]
Many of the Haitian migrants had lived in Chile and Brazil since the 2010 earthquake that left 1.5 million people homeless in Haiti.
They found work in those countries, until the coronavirus pandemic took its toll on Latin American economies and authorities began to crack down on undocumented immigrants, many of them Haitian refugees.
This is how a network of underage coyotes operates that organized crime recruits to smuggle migrants
Oct. 5, 202101: 50
Fritz Nor is by the sea with his 6-month-old son, King, born in Brazil.
He is scheduled to leave in two weeks with his wife and baby.
Nor is aware that crossing the Darien Gap is dangerous.
But that doesn't deter him.
"This is not life for a family," said Nor, who was a construction worker in Brazil.
“I want to be a free man.
I want documents to be able to work ”.
[Biden on border management bind: "He needs to show moral clarity right now"]
The Government of Chile requires all migrants who entered the country before March 2020 to deliver a series of documents from their countries of origin, including checking their criminal records to legalize their status.
Haitian migrants on their way to Panama through the Darien Gap in Acandi, Colombia, on September 28, 2021.Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda / EFE
Most Haitians say they would have to travel to their country to obtain these documents in person, because they are not available online in the country's antiquated registration system.
Haitians who manage to cross the border with the United States run the risk of being expelled back to Haiti.
The Biden administration has expelled more Haitians than during the entire Trump presidency, according to an investigation by the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), a Southern California nonprofit that advocates for Haitian migrants.
On September 29, Chile's metropolitan police, with the help of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), dismantled a network of migrant smuggling that was helping them reach Mexico and the United States.
The head of the metropolitan police's human trafficking brigade, Giordano Lanzarote, reported that so far this year the group had transferred more than 1,000 Haitians, including many children who were traveling alone.
[A yacht disappears in the Caribbean with a Latino crew returning from delivering humanitarian aid in Haiti]
"We do not have a precise figure of how many have entered Chile, but we know that about 50 or 60 people entered a day," said Lazarini about the smugglers during a press conference.
Using the WhatsApp messaging service, the nine suspects arrested allegedly lured migrants to travel north by road.
With thousands of people already in Necoclí, and only hundreds of them allowed to leave each day, the city has become a crucial choke point in the flow of those seeking refuge in the north.